Twenty Wishes Revisited

Thursday, January 31

I’m so excited to share Twenty Wishes Revisted and to have the opportunity to provide the space and support to those who would love to try this new adventure with us! Ever since I first read about this concept, I have loved it, and felt excited about doing it. Now we’d like to share this as a group experience and provide support and possibly connections to help make wishes come true- in ways you’d never dreamed possible!

So here is where it all began for me- and how I feel strongly about making wishes vs making resolutions, as one is filled with hope, and the other on a lack of some kind. Wishes can happen at any time and are such an exciting focal point for your life!

I read a book whose core theme was how making a list of twenty wishes dramatically changed the lives of each person involved. This topic intrigued me, and my hope is that it will encourage you to take the time to do it too, and hopefully join us in our endeavors to do so as a group in our office. Let me explain a little more.

The concept surrounds a group of women who met in a book group on Valentine’s Day, each having a devastating thing in common- they were all widows. Some had been widows for several years, while some had only been so for a few months. The ages of the women ranged from the 20’s to the 60’s, and their backgrounds couldn’t have been more different. Some were rich, some worked very hard just to make a living. Grief leveled the playing ground, and they were able to gain a different sense of belonging again in a world they felt was full of couples. Each felt a large chapter of their life had ended, and none of them felt totally alive. Life wasn’t unfolding as they had planned, and that felt like a bitter pill to swallow.

And then, one of them came up with the 20 Wishes concept, and none of their lives would ever be the same again!

Why is this so important?

Wishes are similar to dreams and run along a similar path as hope! All are very powerful motivators for change, growth, and feeling more alive and joyful! To someone who has lost hope, or is feeling down, the concept of twenty wishes for themselves opens up all possibility once more. The concept is simple: List 20 wishes you’d like to see happen for YOU in the next year.

Did you catch that? No other rules apply-except this- once you have made your list, it requires action on your part. You are the only one who can make your wishes come true, and only if you take action to make it so. One small step starts the balls rolling, and you will be amazed at the changes that begin to occur! You are suddenly standing in the middle of a circle with 360 degrees of possibility and the power to make them happen!

So why does this even matter?

When something happens to us at any point in life that makes us stop seeing the possibilities before us, and it seems we have no options that excite us, it is easy to stayin that frame of mind. The longer we entertain these limiting thoughts, the more challenging it is to shake them. Especially when someone has died, there may be feelings of survivor’s guilt, or insecurities about doing things alone. These are all quite normal, yet not a place where we should stay.

During any long-term relationship there are parts of ourselves that we let go of to become a stronger unit- a stronger couple. After time, we may realize that we miss some of those aspects of ourselves, and this really sets in after the relationship ends, whether through death, separation, or divorce. It can happen in relationships where the couple wants to stay together, and one, or both of them decides to work on themselves.

Another time when many naturally focus on what they want, but in a different form, is at the end of one year, and the beginning of a new one. Resolutions have a different feel to them, and that is why I feel this focus on wishes has a much greater impact, which also translates into a great success rate for us.

So, Let’s Get Started!

What happened with the twenty wishes, and how can you start? At first it may be challenging to decide exactly what those 20 things should be. There are really so many possibilities! They can be practical, or they can be wishes that involve the heart. Some may be whimsical or even seem far-fetched. Remember that all things are possible! Let this be a process- you don’t have to sit down and list all 20 of them in one sitting. Let it evolve and really give it some thought. It is so much fun!

The questions that you need to ask yourself are:

What do you want most in the world?

What are things you’ve always wanted to do, yet never have?

What did the women in the group wish for?

Well to give you some ideas, here are a few things from their lists:

To find one good thing about life (remember where she started from-start from where you are and look towards where you want to go!)

To find happiness again

To do something good for someone else

Several wished to find love again

Several wished to learn how to knit

To travel to Paris with someone they loved

Open a business doing what they loved

Meet new people

Form new friendships

Learn to speak French

Learn to cook something new

Explore a new concept of what family can look like

This process can be done on a single piece of paper, or you can make it as elaborate as you desire, listing them in a book and journaling each step of progress for each wish. One was into scrapbooking and made hers into a scrapbook. Leather bound journals were a great choice for others. You can start out on a single piece of paper and transfer them into a more permanent option later. The choices are all yours! Once you have your wish on a page, the process then becomes a matter of listing out the steps needed to make it come true- in other words, the actions required on your part to make it happen.

This is a very critical step. Did you know that the process of planning a vacation is just as important, if not more so, than actually taking it? This is another aspect of the wishes that makes it so healthy for us. For more information on this, I highly recommend listening to our podcast of the radio show we did on this topic here. It is an amazing process!

We hope to see you in our gatherings happening once a month for a year! Let us support each other and see what can happen in a year for all of us! For more information, or if you’d like to register, click here.